Conservation Groups Target 950,000-Acre Utah Logging Project

Conservation groups are challenging the US Forest Service’s authorization of a logging project in the Manti-La Sal National Forest, saying the agency failed to look at the effects on wildlife and habitat.

The environmental assessment that was prepared for the project has minimal details on when and how prefire logging and mastication—which chews up trees and turns them into mulch—will happen, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, Council on Wildlife and Fish, and WildLands Defense said in their complaint filed Tuesday in the US District Court for the District of Utah.

The project authorized unrestricted mechanized ...